"Gene Wolfe - Long Sun 1 - Nightside the long sun" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wolfe Gene)

He forgot the rest at times, though at others all these things would reoccur to him, rough truths
cloaked in a new certainty; but he never forgot the voices that were in fact but one voice, and
what they (who were one) had said; never forgot the bitter lesson, though once or twice he tried
to push it away, those fell words heard as Feather fell, poor little Feather, as the rabbit's hot
blood spilled from the altar, as the First Setders took up the homes prepared for them in diis
familiar Viron, as the dead woman seemed to stir, rags fluttering in the hot wind born halfway
'round the

whorl, a wind that blew ever stronger and wilder as clockwork that had never really stopped began
to turn again.

"I will not fail," he told die voices, and felt he lied, yet felt the approbation, too.

And then.



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And then . . .

His left hand moved, snatching the ball from Horn's very fingers.

Patera Silk spun about. The black ball flew like a black bird, straight through the ring at the
opposite end of the ball court. It struck the hellstone with a satisfying thump and an irruption
of blue sparks, and threaded the ring a second time as it bounced back.

Horn tried to stop him, but Patera Silk knocked him sprawling, caught die ball again, and smoked
it in for a second double. The monitor's chimes sang dieir three-note paean, and its raddled gray
face appeared to announce the final score: thirteen to twelve.

Thirteen to twelve was not a bad score, Patera Silk reflected as he took the ball from Feather and
stuffed it into a trousers pocket. The bigger boys would not be too downcast, while the smaller
boys would be ecstatic.

This last, at least, was already quite apparent He repressed the impulse to hush them and lifted
two of the most diminutive onto his shoulders. "Back to class," he announced. "Class for all of
you. A little arithmetic will do you good. Feather, throw Villus my towel, please."

Feather, one of the larger small boys, obliged; Villus, the boy perched upon Silk's right
shoulder, managed to catch ft, though not deftly.

"Patera," Feather ventured, "you always say there's a lesson in everything."

Silk nodded, mopping his face and rubbing his already disheveled yellow hair. He had been touched
by a god! By the Outsider; and although the Outsider was not one of the

12 Gene Wolfe